What Barney Frank really thinks about the rollback of Dodd-Frank

The Senate is on the verge of passing a bill that will weaken Dodd-Frank, the landmark 2010 banking reform law. To find out what it means, we talked to former congressman Barney Frank, the architect of the bill.

If passed, the new bill will exempt midsize banks with less than $250 billion in assets from strict regulatory scrutiny, and loosen some rules on small banks. (Currently, banks with more than $50 billion in assets are subject to the regulation.) It’s a Republican bill, but it’s also being supported by more than a dozen Democratic senators.

"There's a very important reason for regulating different-sized banks differently," Frank said, pointing to the 2008 crash that radiated from large, overleveraged banks. "For banks, who, if they fail and can't pay their debts, could threaten the economy beyond just the people who they owe the money to."

VICE News spoke to Frank about what the new bill means, why some Democrats are supporting it, and how the original bill he helped write is holding up almost a decade after it was signed into law.

This segment originally aired on March 12, 2018, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.